Saturday, November 20, 2010

Plastic Bags: UB Monster, Music Video, and Bag Bans

Plastic bags are not bio-degradable and they are accumulating in land fills, polluting our waterways and oceans, and can harm wildlife. Cutting back on plastic grocery bags will not only protect our environment, but also reduce our need for oil, the source of chemicals used to make them.

Students in the UB Environmental Network recently held an event that included the "UB Bag Monster", a creature made of 550 plastic bags and one eco-friendly UB student who wanted to make the point that plastic bags are bad for the environment.Instead of packing groceries in single-use plastic, Do One Thing for the Environment: bring your own re-useable bags to the store.

Another group is using music and comedy to show you what you can do to oppose the plastic bag industry, as seen in the video below featuring a parody of the song "Empire State of Mind".

Bans on Plastic Bags are spreading across the U.S.Plastic bags are outlawed in San Francisco and other California cities, including Malibu, Fairfax and Palo Alto. Bans are in effect in Westport, Connecticut, Bethel, Alaska, and Edmonds, Washington. A ban in North Carolina's Outer Banks was expanded from large retailers to all stores. Bans take effect in January in Brownsville, Texas, and Hawaii's Kauai and Maui counties.Parts of Los Angeles County have recently banned stores from using single-use plastic bags. It bans stores from giving customers single-use plastic bags and would require them to charge 10 cents for each paper bag. The ordinance would apply to parts of the county where an estimated 1.1 million people live. Read the recent report at BuffaloNews.com.